1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a communication game system, a communication system, a communication apparatus, and a communication state indication method, and particularly to a game system that controls a development of a game by establishing communication between plural terminal apparatuses and displaying shared information at the terminal apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related-Art
In a conventional communication system, an indication unit for indicating a communication state between communication apparatuses is implemented. The indication unit may indicate a current reception level, or it may indicate a warning when an error occurs successively over a predetermined amount of time or when the rate of errors occurring within a predetermined time period reaches a certain level, for example (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-117895).
However, in indicating the current reception signal level in the conventional communication system, even when a reception signal level is indicated, it may not be possible to actually receive a reception signal due to an interference of the reception signal or a degradation of the reception signal caused by distortions in the transmission path, for example. Thus, the indicated reception signal level may be used as a reference, but it cannot indicate an enabled/disenabled state of a communication, for example.
Also, even in the case of indicating an occurrence of a communication error, it is difficult to detect a deterioration of a communication state. Particularly, in a communication game system, when a communication state is indicated according to the conventional art, the following problems become prominent.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a display screen of a game terminal apparatus of player A in a communication game system according to the conventional art.
During game play time, the player A pays attention to characters CA˜CD that are controlled by the player A himself/herself (i.e., CA) and other players participating in the game (i.e., CB˜CD), and also character C0 that appears in the game. Accordingly, when a communication state indication area 101 for indicating a communication state is separately provided in the display screen during play time as is shown in FIG. 1, the player A needs to look away from the game in order to check the communication state, and this makes it difficult for the player to concentrate on the game, possibly leading to manipulation errors or loss of focus on the game.
Also, when the communication state indication area 101 is separately provided in the display screen, this leads to a reduction of display space for displaying the game itself.
Also, during game play time, it is preferable that the player A be able to instantly check its communication state. However, in the case of providing a separate communication state indication area 101 as is shown in FIG. 1, when the player A wants to check its communication states with respect to plural characters CB˜CD, it is difficult to instantly determine which communication state indications correspond to players of which characters CB˜CD.
It is noted that although the problems of the related art are described with respect to the example of providing a separate communication state indication area 101 as is illustrated in FIG. 1, these problems are not limited to this particular case and apply to other conventional communication state indication techniques as well.